


A Year and a Day

by mosylu



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Arranged Marriage, Alternate Universe - Space, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:20:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26080294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mosylu/pseuds/mosylu
Summary: She's lived her whole life on her spaceship.He's spent his whole life on a remote colony.For the good of both their homes, they have to make it through a year of marriage. But the way it's looking, their union might not survive their first night.Written for the Killervibe Week 2020 theme Arranged Marriage
Relationships: Cisco Ramon/Caitlin Snow
Comments: 6
Kudos: 38
Collections: Killervibedaily Events





	A Year and a Day

The party broke up early, as these things went. Generally handfast parties went into the wee hours of the morning, but the second moon had barely risen by the time people started drifting out of the town hall and back to their houses.

Of course, Cisco thought, looking across the room at his bride, this wasn't your normal handfasting.

Caitlin Snow had taken his hand and recited the vows without any dramatics, but also without any enthusiasm, and when the ceremony was over, she'd dropped it and turned away. She'd spent pretty much the entire party with her crew, and the whole table had deflected any attempts on the part of the colonists to get to know them.

Great.

Usually handfast parties were a welcome for the new colonist, a chance for them to meet and bond with the people who would be their lifelong neighbors if all went well. But this one had made it clear she only intended to stick around long enough to qualify for permanent citizenship, and then she'd be back on her ship and breaking atmo the first chance she got.

Of course, he'd see her again after that. She was half-owner of the ship that loomed in the moonlight on the edge of town. Now that it was owned by a colonial citizen, it was automatically registered to the colony and would be making runs for them. But it would come back only a few times a year, and he had his doubts she'd seek him out.

They just had to get through the handfast year first.

"Thanks for doing this," Barry said at his side.

He grabbed a bun as the tray went past and bit into it with only a hint of savagery. "You asked," he said through the mouthful of bun.

And Barry had asked him, even though he'd handfasted twice already, because Captain Tannhauser had flatly refused the idea of sacrificing her first mate for the entire year. Cisco would be making some trips on the Snowfall, because he was one of the few people in the colony who could be spared for a week or a month at a time as the ship sailed the lightyears between systems.

"Hey, you'll get to see some of the galaxy," Barry said.

Cisco looked out at the window at the ship. "Yeah," he muttered. "In a tin can."

He'd never left the Trappist colonies, never been to the Kepler system or the Teegarden system or even back to the Terran system, which everyone still called home even if they'd never seen it. Yeah, he might have wondered what was out there, but he had a life here. And he liked it.

"It's just a year," Barry said.

"I know," he replied and let out a sigh. "I know."

He left Barry and went walking over to the table where his bride sat. Caitlin Snow, part-owner, first mate, and ship’s medic of the Snowfall, a year older than him, and in the eyes of the Terran government, his wife. 

Unless they screwed up and managed to get this marriage nullified before the year was out. Then she'd lose her citizenship and the colony would have to pay not only all the fees and taxes for a new, unattached colonist, but also late fines. And after the past few years, they didn't have that kind of money. Not to mention they'd lose access to the Snowfall and have to start hiring out cargo haulers from the inner systems again, at twice the rate the Snowfall charged.

"Hey," he said, and the crew turned to look at him. He cleared his throat. "Long day, right? You want to, uh, to go get settled in?"

They all stared at him for a moment, and he thought, _Shit, I didn't threaten to ravish her! I just want to show her my house! You know? Where she's going to live for the next year?_

Then the captain nodded sharply. "We should get started loading her up. The McGee settlement on Trappist-e expects us by tomorrow evening."

"Yep," Cisco said. "Everything's out on the dock, labeled and ready for you."

The captain nodded again, her face rather cold. As if that had been a signal, the crew got to their feet and started filing out. A few of them touched Caitlin's shoulder and one pretty, dark-skinned woman squeezed her hand. Cisco noted that she squeezed back. A friend? A lover? Would she even tell him?

Finally, it was only the captain and Caitlin standing there, face-to-expressionless-face.

"Clear skies, Caitlin," the captain said.

"Smooth landings, Mom," Caitlin said.

The captain nodded one last time and walked out the door, following the rest of her crew. Caitlin reached down and picked up a plain black rucksack, slinging it over her shoulder. "Where are we going?" she said.

"Uh, my house," Cisco said, gesturing vaguely. "That way down the street."

She marched out the door, turning her face away from the crew walking up the street toward the Snowfall. 

He fell into step with her. Normally, he'd be pointing things out - that's the botany center, that's the recreation center, there's the greenhouses, there's the library, there’s the clinic where you’ll work - but she didn't seem interested. The silence fell between them and until he found himself blurting, "That's your mom?"

"What?"

"Captain Tannhauser. You called her Mom."

"Yes," she said. "You didn't know that?"

He'd missed it somehow. Of course, Barry had made all the arrangements, Cisco just had to show up. "Well, you have different last names."

"Snow was my dad's name."

"Are you two always so - " He broke off.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Are we always so what?"

"I mean, it's a pretty big day, and she's leaving the planet. Like, now. You're not going to see her for a couple of weeks, easy. But you acted like you were saying goodbye to a co-worker you didn't like that much."

"We're not given to histrionics," she said.

He was so busy gaping at her that he almost missed his own house. "Oh, whoa, whoa, hey! This is me. Right here. My house."

She swiveled and backtracked the couple of steps she'd taken past his front door. He tapped the button and the door swished open. He spread his arms. "Home sweet home."

She stepped inside and looked around.

It wasn't a big house. It wasn't like the ones he read about in old books from Earth, or the year-old holomovies they got out here. Those houses with glimmering smartglass walls and floating beds, 'bot maids and house computers that anticipated your every need. But it was his. He'd painted the walls, built the furniture, woven the rugs on the floors. 

But she'd been so many places. Seen so much. And she was looking around his house without any expression whatsoever.

"So it's - so this is the front room," he said. "Couch, there, very comfy for afternoon naps. That wall over there is where I project stuff. Holos and files and whatever." He reached in his pocket and tossed his comm on the glass-covered table. "This is the charging table. Hooked up to the solars on the roof but it's got a good battery. Kitchen right over there. My chiller. Not big, I know, but I get a lot of fresh ingredients, seasonal, so I don't need much storage. Uh. You like to cook?"

She blinked. Said, "I don't know how."

She didn't know how to _cook?_

"Okay," he said. "Well." He turned away from the kitchen. "So here are the other rooms. My lab, first, here." He patted the first door on the right.

"Your lab?"

"I build things. It's kind of - it's my deal. I build things. It's a mess right now so I'm not going to give you the tour. You can check it out later if you want, I'm not precious. Just don't mess with anything or I'll have to go all Bluebeard on you."

She looked at him blankly.

"It's this story - okay. Never mind." Clearly she didn't share his taste for antiquated Terran mythology. "Okay, so, bathroom here. I cleared off a shelf for you to put your - " He eyed her rucksack. Did she have anything in it? "- your, you know, bathroom stuff."

She ignored the shelf in favor of staring at the shower stall. Maybe it was too small for her. He cleared his throat. "This time of year we get more hot water because the pipes are all laid along the roofs and they get the sun on the way in. But during the rainy season, we're all limited to ten minutes because otherwise it's cold showers for half the town."

She nodded. 

"Right," he said. "Okay, so to continue your tour - " He led the way out of the bathroom and to the door directly across the hall. He hit the button. "This one here is my bedroom. Tada."

She walked in, setting her pack on the bed.

"Whoa! Hey, what are you doing?"

"Getting unpacked," she said. She frowned at the bed and unzipped her bag.

"No! No. Oh my god. You're not sleeping here." 

She turned her frown on him. "You said it was your bedroom."

"Yeah, mine! Not yours. You don't have to share with me." He stepped back and pointed at the last door. "There. That's your room. There."

She picked up her rucksack again, following him to the door as he opened it for her. She didn't make any move to go in. "This is where I'll sleep?"

"Yeah. It's all ready for you, sheets on the bed and everything." He gestured as he spoke. "Uh, you got your charging table here, some shelves, right, put whatever you want. The closet, obviously, hah. The window opens if you like to sleep with some night air. I oiled the latches." 

The room was the same size as his lab and his own bedroom. But it looked plain and small, suddenly.

"You can do whatever you want to it while you're here," he said quickly. “Paint, pictures - Allegra got really into weaving, and like textiles? She had literal tapestries up. It was wild. She took them all with her when she moved out."

"Who's Allegra?"

"My last handfast. You might have met her tonight."

"You've been married before?"

"It's not a marriage," he said. "It's a handfast. This isn't forever." He stepped back. "I'll let you get settled in."

* * *

This house was huge.

Caitlin set her rucksack in the center of the bed and stared at it for a moment. Then she shifted it to the end of the bed and sat. She let out a squeak as springs creaked and the mattress sagged under her. Unprepared, she almost brained herself on the wall before springing back up. 

There was no storage under the bed, or above the bed. Not like her snug berth on the Snowfall. Just shelves and hooks. Clearly everything was just supposed to sit out in the open. Loose. Not secured at all.

She desperately wanted cabinets, doors to swing shut and latch. Some way to fold the furniture up into the walls. If you had things just out like this, they'd all go flying if you had bank hard to avoid an asteroid. If there was a rough re-entry, you could come back and everything you owned could be all over the floor if you hadn't secured it properly.

No asteroids, no re-entries. She was on land. Nothing was going anywhere.

She nudged the table next to the bed with her foot, and it scooted across the floor.

It wasn't even bolted down. 

A comm, he said. You can charge your comm here.

She didn't have one. She'd never needed one. The Snowfall had a PA system. You just found the nearest terminal and called out for whoever you needed. They would come find you. It never took more than ten minutes, even if they were on the other end of the ship. Sometimes she carried one of the ships' comms when they'd made planetside and she was out in the port city to shop for supplies or explore. But it wasn't hers. 

She felt lost, in freefall. She'd lived her whole life on that ship. Slept every night, after she could sleep on her own, in the berth tucked up against the engines, their low basso hum the only lullaby she'd ever needed.

He'd asked if she liked to cook and it was as if her brain shorted out. She enjoyed preparing the ship's meals, when her turn came up on the rota, but it was all dehydrated, freeze-dried, powdered items that she put together, from recipes that had been meticulously planned. 

He'd talked about fresh ingredients. She didn't know how to cook with those. Fresh fruits and vegetables were a rare treat, reserved for Rosh Hashanah or when they got a bonus for bringing the cargo in early. And actual meat like they'd had on the tables at the party? Not reconstituted protein, but honest-to-Terra meat? The idea of cooking with that struck terror into her heart.

She must have looked like a total rube, gaping at the water shower. She'd seen water showers in movies. Read about them in books. But water was too heavy to carry more than what they needed for drinking or rehydration. She'd used sonics all her life. She couldn't picture getting clean by pouring water all over herself.

She went over to the window and flattened her hands against the glass. There was a latch. It opened, Cisco had said. Oh, no, no, no. Having a window was going to be bad enough, all that _land_ out there, so wide open she thought she might float away through it. No, she wouldn't be opening this window at night. Or possibly ever.

There was a low, familiar rumble, and Caitlin pressed her hands hard to the glass. The Snowfall rose above the houses, her bow already tilting up. Her stern glowed with the blaze of the engines.

Caitlin had seen her like this before, times when the port authority made them change docks. But she was always lifting up and coming down again a little ways away, and Caitlin could walk over and join her again. Mostly, she was onboard, feeling the pressure of G's mounting, pushing her into her seat in the cockpit as they lifted up into the blue sky and watched it turn black and fill with stars as they broke atmo.

It seemed to hover for a moment, and then it lifted away, pushing up into the atmosphere, getting smaller and smaller.

Gone.

Something bubbled up in her throat, and she pressed her hands to her mouth. Instead of vomit, tears poured down over her hands as she watched her ship, her home, her family disappear.

_Don't be stupid,_ she told herself fiercely. _Don't be such a child. You knew this would happen. They'll be back. You'll see her again._

But the tears wouldn't stop.

Over the hiccuping gasps of her breath, she heard a light knock. She shook her head but couldn't make herself say anything.

"Caitlin?" he called. "Everything okay?"

_Go away,_ she thought, but an especially loud hiccup of a sob escaped instead.

The door swished and his footsteps echoed on the floorboards. Not the familiar thunk-thunk of boots on a deck, but a sound of bare feet on wood. "Caitlin?"

She turned her face to the window. "I'm not crying."

"Sure," he said. "That's why there aren't tears all over your face."

She dragged her sleeve over her face. "Please go away."

"God," he said. "You're acting like fucking Persephone kidnapped by Hades."

"Who?"

"It's this old - you know what, never mind. I mean, you're acting like this is the end of the world. It's not that bad here, okay? I mean, I like it."

Startled, she lifted her head. Tears still dripped off her chin.

He stood in the middle of her room, arms crossed, a scowl on his face. "So we're not a full planet yet, we don't have cities or operas or - I don't know, whatever it is you're used to. But it's nice here! You see those mountains? I fucking love those mountains, okay? Prettiest place in the galaxy and you can quote me on that. The ocean's an hour away by speeder and in a month or two it'll be warm enough to go swimming and sailing. The people are great. We have an ice cream parlor! We make ice cream now. There's, there's - it's not that bad, all right?"

She stared at him. "It's not about being here," she said. "It's about not being there." She pointed up to the star-filled sky that had swallowed her ship. "It's about my ship flying away and I'm not on it." The tears started up again and she turned her face away.

He was silent for so long she thought he'd left. But then the soft scuff of footsteps warned that he was coming closer, and two strong arms came around her. "Oh my god," he muttered. "Oh my god, I'm such a jerk. I'm sorry. Shhh. You're okay. You're okay. Let it out. You'll feel better."

She never cried in front of people. She hated it. But for some reason, she dropped her head to his shoulder and sobbed as he stroked her hair, crooning softly.

Her head ached and her face felt sticky by the time she'd cried herself out.

"Better?" he said, taking her shoulders and looking her in the face.

He'd been right. She nodded, wiping her face on her sleeve again. 

He let out his breath. "I'm sorry I was such an asshole right now. I thought you were crying because you hated it here."

"Your planet's okay," she said. "It looks nice. It wasn't that."

He fished in his pocket and offered her a handkerchief. She blew her nose and mopped her face, then tried to give it back.

"No," he said blandly, "you can keep it. That's okay. I've got others."

She managed a smile and tucked it in her pocket. "I'm sorry," she said. "It's just - the Snowfall left. And I was here. And I couldn't - "

"Yeah," he said, with a depth of understanding in his voice. "You're homesick, aren't you?"

She felt her lip wobble again, dangerously. "I've never been off my ship," she said.

"Never?"

She waved her hand impatiently. "I've walked on land," she said. "I'm not that much of a space baby. I just - even if I was at a hotel or something, I always knew she was close, and I was going back soon. But she's gone."

He reached out and undid the latch, swinging the window open. He leaned on the sill, looking out at the stars. "How old were you when you started flying?"

"Neonatal," she said, looking at the window, all open to the elements. Cool air washed around them, smelling sweet and green.

It took him a moment. "You were born on that ship?"

"My dad was the ship's medic. My mom was the first mate. They fell in love. They bought out the last captain when I was five and renamed her.” She edged closer to the window, cautiously, and found that she failed to fall out. “When my dad died a few years ago, I inherited his shares. I know it looks like a tin can to you, but to me, it's home."

He winced and looked out at the stars. "Why did you agree to this?"

She studied his position and copied it, bracing her elbows on the sill next to him and propped her chin in her hand. He felt sturdy and warm at her side. If all that openness out there tried to swallow her, he would catch her. "Do you know how docking fees work?"

"Huh? No . . . "

"Every time we make planetfall, we pay a fee to the port authority. They give discounts based on the owners' citizenship. But nomads pay full price. Always. Everywhere."

"Nomads?"

"Ships whose owners have no citizenship. We used to be registered to the Starlabs station off Mars, but - "

"Yeah, we heard about that disaster, even out here. Why didn't you apply for refugee status on some nice planet?"

"We would have had to stay wherever we applied. We couldn't have flown. So we flew as nomads. But that wasn't working."

"So you handfasted with me to avoid the taxes?"

She groaned. Why had she expected a rockfoot to understand any of this? A colonial rockfoot, too; everybody knew what they were like. "We have to figure those fees in anytime we bid for a job, and nomads bid for all our jobs. If we bid too high, we don't get the job, of course not. But if we bid too low, we don't make a profit."

"And that would be terrible."

"Don't give me your utopian colonial attitude. We need to buy fuel and supplies. We need to pay the crew a fair wage. We need to perform maintenance so we pass annual inspections or guess what? It's another fee. My mom and I aren't some greedy fatcat ship owners like you see in the movies, cackling over our piles of money. We're in the red. All the way down. Drowning in red."

He took that in. "So you - could you lose the ship?"

"If we'd had another month like the last six, we would've."

He was quiet for a moment. "So that's why you wanted citizenship. And the cargo runs that Barry was guaranteeing." 

Caitlin sighed, remembering her own indignation at that list of runs, half of which were colony-to-colony in the Trappist system. Not to mention the stipulation that they'd carry any colonist where they needed to go. _We're not planet-hoppers,_ she'd snarled to her mother _. And we're not a passenger ship!_

Her mother had snapped back, _For the next year, we'll do it with a smile, because those runs are a sure thing._

She said, "Colonial ships pay the lowest fees anywhere, and they don't pay any fees between colonies in the same system.. But we barely had the spare change to pay our crew for this last run. We couldn't buy into a colony."

"Most people can't," he said. "And you know, we pay a lot of money to the inner systems for unattached colonists, too. That's why almost everybody who was born here has done at least a couple of handfasts to bring new blood in. We couldn't afford to expand, otherwise."

She turned her head to look at him. "How many people have you married so they could come here?"

"Two," he said. "Chester Runk and Allegra Garcia. You'll see them around town. And again, it's not a marriage. Marriage is . . . it's different. It's forever. Handfasting is just one year. And people here aren't really going to treat us like a married couple. We're more like roommates. Or a mentorship."

"Is that why you didn't want me in your bedroom?" She'd felt strangely insulted by that. She wasn't a virginal princess or anything. She'd had port lovers, and one short-timer on the ship who'd spent most of his off-time in her bunk in between Proxima Centauri-B and Teegarden's-C. "You're not allowed to sleep with your handfast?"

He laughed and - blushed? It was hard to tell in the moonlight. "No, nothing like that. Actually, lot of handfasts sleep together during their year, and there's a handfast baby every now and then. It's just - I didn't want you to feel like it was required."

She cocked her head. "Did you sleep with your other handfasts?"

"Ah - " He scratched his eyebrow. "With Chester. But Allegra was more like my little sister. I am attracted to women, but I wasn't into her like that."

Hmmmm. He'd been very quick to make that clear, hadn't he?

He reached out and brushed her hair out of her eyes. She felt herself go still, holding his gaze. "Look," he said in a low voice. "This is new and strange for both of us. Did you know I've never been off this planet?"

She felt her eyes widen. "Never?"

He shook his head. "Not even once. You want the truth, I'm kind of terrified of going into space."

"Don't be. It's beautiful. Wait until you see it."

He smiled at her and it was a completely different smile than the ones he'd aimed her way all day. Those had been bright and shiny, pasted on. This one seemed to come from all the way inside him, beaming out at her like sunlight. "Okay," he said. "You can show me. But for the next year, the longest we can be apart is seventy-one hours.”

She nodded. She’d read the contract closely. If they hit seventy-two hours of separation, the Terran government would nullify the contract. “I know. I’d lose my citizenship.”

“And then you lose your ship and the colony loses a shit-ton of money we can't afford. It's disastrous for both of us. All of us, if you think about it. We're in this together. So let's try to do this together, okay?"

A ship couldn't fly if the crew was all at cross-purposes. She nodded. "Okay. Together."

He straightened up. "Get some sleep, okay? You're getting the grand tour of the town tomorrow, and we're totally having ice cream."

It made her smile. "I'll hold to you that."

He smiled back and started for the door.

Something prompted her to call out, "Cisco?"

He paused. "Mmm?"

"You said that marriages were different than handfasts."

"Yeah," he said. "Handfasts are about convenience, and growing the community. Marriages are about love. Partnership. They're forever."

"Does a handfast ever turn into a marriage?"

"It's happened," he said. "Why do you ask?"

She shrugged and turned away from him to close the window. "I was just curious."

FINIS


End file.
